So, you remember that thing I posted a while back, about how I feel like I have a limited amount of creative energy and sometimes that energy gets channeled into things other than blogging? Well, it’s happening again, only this time, rather than knitting, that energy is being channeled toward my job. Which is GREAT. It’s been a long time since I felt challenged at work, and I’m going to milk it for as long as I can. And while that’s happening, I may have limited interest in and time for blogging. Just so you know! I continue to be not dead … just a bad, inconsistent blogger.

One of the nifty features of WordPress is that it lets you see what search terms brought people to your blog. If the terms that brought people here over the past seven days are any indication, I cover the following topics:

Nope! Still alive! Still very much bogged down in the Christmas knitting! The good news is, the end is in sight. The even more good news is, I have new clothes and am ever so excited to show them to you. The even MORE good news is, I also have new Fyrinnae and am even MORE excited to show THAT to you.

The less good news is, I cannot in good faith promise that I will have any time or energy for blogging anytime soon, what with the impending “Holiday Season” and all its attendant wrapping and mailing and cooking and baking and decorating and collapsing on the kitchen floor in a greasy, flour-encrusted heap of existential (though festive) angst, sobbing and heaving great breaths of gingerbread-scented air until I just wish for death to wrap me in its sweet embrace and when, WHEN, LORD, WHEN WILL I EVER SEE THE SUN AGAIN–

Oh. Sorry. What I mean to say is, Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and the to-do list is starting to loom. So once again, I must be a terrible blogger and say please, hang in there! There will be pictures of clothes coming soon! And eyeshadow! Maybe even cookies! One of these days!

The lovely, talented, and impressively foul-mouthed spinster-in-training has given me a blog award! Let’s all say it together: Aaaawwwwwww! So I’m going to pass it along, as you do with these things (apparently … this is the first one I’ve ever gotten, so what the hell do I know?).

Still here! Still camera-less! Although I did replace the AC adapter for my laptop, so I’m back online, at least. Did I mention that that died too? It did, so I was spending very little time online because it was a pain in the ass to go fire up the landline computer in the bedroom. 2010 will henceforth be known as The Year Wherein All My Mechanical Items Failed Me.

Phone: Broke mysteriously in car on way home from work; was replaced before it died entirely

Car battery: Died

Camera: Died an especially slow and irritating death

AC adapter: Died, with bonus high-pitched screechy noises

Old TV (technically, this was Mister Principessa’s, not mine): Died, with bonus LOUD death rattle that led the Mister to bestow upon it the affectionate nickname “The Buzzbox”

Bottom right rear molar: Died (OK, OK. It “broke” rather than “died,” and it was not, strictly speaking, a Mechanical Item. But it was a huge inconvenience and cost a crap ton of money to fix, so I’m letting it in anyway.)

When it rains, it pours, by golly!

I’d hoped to have my new camera in time to capture this weekend’s festivities, but it was shipped to my work, and I’m taking tomorrow off, so the glorious occasion of my 31st birthday will have to go undocumented on film. Or, you know, in pixels. Whatever. At any rate, the next few days will involve shopping, cooking, baking, opening of presents, knitting, and–if the good people at Weather Underground are to be believed–rain! On my birthday! What an excellent gift THAT would be!

Anyway. I really miss blogging regularly, and I can’t wait to try out some of the eyeshadows I may or may not have bought recently *cough*SephoraFriendsandFamilySale*cough* and take pictures with my shiny new camera!

Sigh … bear with me through these dark, troubling, blogless times. I’ll be back soon. I swear.

My camera is well and truly dead. It’s pushing up the daisies. It’s run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. It’s an ex-camera.

Bad timing, too, because I have so many things to show you. Imagine, if you will …

[sashimi here]

[socks in progress here–CASHMERE, people!!!]

[green matte nail polish here]

However! My birthday approaches, and I have been tipped off that a new camera with my name on it may be headed in the general direction of southern California. And don’t be surprised if the occasion of its arrival is celebrated with an Office Space-style dismantling of the old camera, which has driven the Mister and I well nigh insane with frustration over the past week or so. Why does it refuse to focus? Why does it turn itself off immediately after you turn it on? WHY does it say “Paper Jam” when there IS NO PAPER JAM???

All I know is, it’s making both of us crazy. It was a good little camera while it lasted, and, to be fair, I could have taken better care of it. I could have put it in its little travel case instead of just cramming it into my purse. I could have bought it new batteries sooner when the old ones started to go south. And I definitely could have not dropped it on the floor of the gondola at the Sterling Vineyards. But it’s become a pain in my ass, so I think it has to go.

Just a quickie today to reassure the four of you that I am, in fact, alive. I am utterly snowed under with knitting, and, as predicted, that’s sucking up a goodly amount of my time and creative juices. But it’s really fun! And I’m getting a hell of a head start on Christmas!

I’d love to post pictures of my Christmasy works in progress. But I can’t, because if I were to make a Venn diagram of “People who read my blog” and “People who usually get knitted things from me for Christmas,” it would look like this:

So … you know.

Plus, I’ve been having massive tension headaches lately. Every so often, my neck and shoulders get incredibly tense, and that tension manifests in the form of ongoing sore head problems that OTC painkillers don’t touch. So I’ve been doing everything possible to combat that, including jogging, yoga, lots of hot baths, and staying the hell offline. Eight hours in front of a computer during the day + multiple hours in front of a computer in the evening = hideous neck and shoulder tension, and then … the headaches.

Oh, and in addition to these issues, my camera is behaving like a cranky two-year-old. That situation will be remedied shortly, but in the meantime, attempting to use it is incredibly frustrating. So I haven’t been.

And there you have my litany of excuses! Posting will probably be sporadic for the foreseeable future. Be advised! Bad, inconsistent blogger in da house!

I have a theory on creative energy. Some of you have already heard it, but here’s a little refresher. I believe that I have a limited amount of creativity, and that when I start to aim it in one direction, there’s less of it to aim in other directions. This ebbs and flows–sometimes I feel more creative in general, and sometimes less–but generally speaking, creative energy that I’m spending on one pursuit is creative energy that isn’t getting spent on other pursuits.

Why the hell am I blathering about this? Because I was TOTALLY NOT KIDDING when I said last time that knitting season is approaching. My personal knitting season tends to run from about October through May, and as you might imagine, it sucks up a lot of time and creativity. It generally begins with the knitting of several Christmas gifts for friends and relatives, not to mention a multitude of cold weather accessories (OK, chilly weather accessories … it rarely if ever gets “cold” here) for myself. I’m already starting to feel the onset of Winter Knit Lust (major symptoms: increased time spent browsing Ravelry, an unhealthy interest in yarn purchasing, and a disinterest in spending time online when there are about 7 projects on the needles just begging to be brought to fruition).

The other activity that I tend to ramp up in the chillier months is cooking. There really is something satisfying, on a primal level, about heating your house via the cooking of food that will warm your loved ones from the inside out. One of my favorite things about fall and winter is that these seasons are a fabulous excuse to spend a lot of time browsing through cookbooks and stirring pots.

The upshot of all this is that posting around these here parts might veer toward foodly and yarnly pursuits in the coming months. I have no plans to cease futzing around with makeup, but it’s likely that that won’t be my first priority. And because writing is itself a creative pursuit, it’s also likely that posting in general will slow down as I spend more time chopping things with knives and playing with string offline. So … fair warning!

Votes are currently split 50/50 on the train case situation. HOWEVER. One additional vote in favor of Brownie came in via Twitter, so that tips the scales in favor of keeping my makeup where it is, at least for now. And that’s good, because this is also the lazy option, which I tend to favor in general. Thanks to everyone for your input! And lest you think that Colonel Mustard is sitting in a corner somewhere, gathering glittery dust and sobbing quietly over his Least Favored Train Case status, please know that I have filled him up with perfumes and about half my lotion collection. Oughta take care of that soap smell right quick.

In other news, I’m leaving on vacation in the morning, so posts might be few and far between for a week and a half or so. But I’ve got lots of ideas stirring for when I get back, involving Detrivore, more Fyrinnae, and cheap brush comparisons, plus a Makeup Showdown or two, which I haven’t done in a while. So, as Poochie would say … Catch ya on the flipside, dudemeisters!